THIS BLOG RATES THE S&P 500 BUY/SELL/OR HOLD EACH DAY WITH 2-GOALS FOR LONG TERM INVESTMENTS: (1) PRESERVE CAPITAL (2) BEAT THE S&P 500.
(((The blog is for information only. You assume all risk of its use; we don’t warrant the accuracy of our content. You must do your own due diligence.)))

Thursday, January 19, 2017

“The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits
dropped last week to the lowest level in more than 43 years, another sign that
most American workers enjoy job security…The Labor Department said Thursday
that 234,000 Americans sought jobless aid, a drop of 15,000 from the previous
week…” Story at…

“Manufacturing activity in the Philadelphia region
expanded at the fastest pace in more than two years in January, a report
released Thursday showed. The Philadelphia Federal Reserve’s index of business
conditions rose to 23.6 this month from a revised 19.7 in December…” Story at…

“Since 2012, the S&P 500 has risen almost 70% while
earnings are up a mere 2%...When price increases are not accompanied by
earnings increases, it indicates that multiple expansion has occurred…The
current P/E multiple is not just above average, it is 70% above the average of
over 130 years of observations.”[My
cmt: While the PE’s haven’t reached the extremes of the year-2000 bubble at the
high end, the current median value of
stock PEs are now higher than year-2000.] Commentary at…

The point of this piece was that making extrapolations
based on rise in price alone (and not valuation and earnings) is a fools’ game.

CNBC FANS

Wonder why those anchor folks looked chilly in DAVOS this
week?The High Wednesday was 25 so there
was a reason Becky looked pained.

MARKET REPORT / ANALYSIS

-Thursday the S&P 500 was down about 0.4% to 2264.

-VIX rose about 2.5% to 12.77.

-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 2.470%.

WHAT THE SHORT-TERM, TEA LEAVES SAY…

Bear signals:

-The Money Trend indicator is sharply down and bearish.
Money Trend makes a rough estimate of dollars in and out of stocks.

-The 10-day closing Tick is high at 266. Closing tick of
300 is considered a sell point per Tom McClellan

-The S&P 500 Index remains close to its upper
Bollinger Band a decidedly bearish indication.

-Late day action is down on a 10-day basis, but it
depends how one measures this – on a percentage of price it is down. (If one
just counts up days vs down days, it’s up.)

-My Top Indicator is still calling for a pullback based
on the S&P 500 outperforming the underlying Market Internals. The indicator
turned more bearish today as it has for the last 7-trading days.

-My sum of 16-indicators is now -4 on the day, down from
+6 just 2-days ago, and it is bearish on a 10-day basis.

-VIX is rising from very low levels.

-Market Internals that I track are all negative.

-The Calm-Before-the Storm indicator (based on
statistical analysis of market movement) is calling for a selloff.

Bullish indicators:

-The cyclical industrial stocks (XLI-ETF) improved today,
but this isn’t a great indicator for timing. It can be slow to change. Further, the
improvement in XLI may be due to Union Pacific since it had a big day and makes
up roughly 5% of the XLI.

The market is stretched and may continue to stretch
higher, but overall, I think the upside potential is limited while the downside
risk is fairly high, at least for a short-term pullback. I remain a short-term
bear.

LONG TERM

Long-term, I’m fully invested at 50% in stocks (a
conservative-retiree allocation – I don’t do short-term timing with retirement
money).The economic data is looking
more like year-1999 as Employment, Industrial Production, Retail Sales and Personal
Income continue to indicate an economy with potential to overheat. Add in
Inflation, now above the FED 2% goal and one wonders whether the FED will take
fuel out of the fire anytime soon.

-10-day moving average of the change in spread: -14. In
other words, over the last 10-days, on average, the spread has decreased by 14
each day.

Market Internals remained
negative on the market.

Market Internals are a decent trend-following analysis of
current market action, but should not be used alone for short term trading.
They are usually right, but they are often late.They are most useful when they diverge from
the Index.In 2014, using these
internals alone would have made a 9% return vs. 13% for the S&P 500 (in on
Positive, out on Negative – no shorting).

Followers

About Me

I am an engineer with a lifelong interest in "playing with numbers" so what could be more fun than trying to develop a system that beats the stock market? Well, lots of things, but I decided to do this anyway.
While I am not a finance-professional, or professional investor, I have developed some skills.
I competed in two CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio contests finishing in the top 4% in 2008 (34,320th of 800,000) and the top 0.1% (448th of 500,000) in 2009. More importantly, I managed to sell out of my retirement accounts at or near the top in 2000 and 2007 and bought close enough to the bottom that I didn’t lose too much sleep. (Even Bill Gates lost SOME sleep.)
I hope that my thoughts will help you achieve your investing goals. Please remember that my ideas are free and there may be times when my ideas are worth less than what you paid.